“They seemed to appreciate your help when they needed it.”
“I think they did. But other things have happened since then. Richard Lodge, and then this kid Mahoney. You heard about that?”
Isabel nodded, and the shine of the sun moved on her dark hair. Her eyes had a pained expression and then relaxed.
“I can’t say I’m very sorry,” Fielding went on. “He was the one who pushed Ed Bracken into the gunfight, and I’m pretty sure he got shot when he opened fire on me and killed my horse.”
She put her hand on his arm as they continued walking. “No one can blame you for that.”
“No, but they might want to get even. I think that’s part of why Selby and your father want to lie low.”
“I’m glad you’re not like that.”
“Thanks. It’s just not a pretty spot to be in.”
“You’re your own man,” she said. “You stick up for yourself. Maybe someone else doesn’t like it, but it counts a lot with me.”
“Thanks for that, too.”
They walked to the end of the lane and turned to each other. Fielding cast a glance toward the yard and saw her father gazing in their direction. With his left hand, Fielding took off his hat and held it as a shield as he leaned forward to kiss her.
As they parted he said, “So long for now. I’ll be thinking of you.”
“Be careful. And I’ll be thinking of you, too.”
He led the bay out a few steps, checked the rigging, and swung aboard. He turned in the saddle to wave, and he caught her smile.
The glow stayed with him for a while, but the meetings with Roe and Selby came back to remind him of how things stood. He was on his own now. He had no one to blame. It was of his own making, and he had to face what would come. This whole feud had moved from push and shove to bullets and blood, and it wasn’t likely to go away by itself.
Chapter Twelve
The broad, bladelike part of the needle glinted in the morning sunlight as Fielding pushed the instrument through the canvas. Then he reached around, grasped the tip, and pulled the needle the rest of the way until the thread was tight. He looped the thread over the seam and poked the needle in place again. Tucking his elbow against his side, he moved his right hand so that the eye end of the needle rested in one of the steel pits in the buttonlike thimble, which was set in a leather strap that ran across his palm. He made sure the needle was straight, then pushed with the heel of his hand until the shiny tip broke through again.
When Isabel had first given him the needle, he thought it might be large and dangerous for his purposes, but now that he was trying it out, he could see it was safer than the smaller one, which sometimes went off course and jabbed him in the finger as he held the fabric.
He worked his way along the seam, repairing the rip in the sheet of canvas. From time to time, the blade of the needle flashed. Fielding imagined a sailmaker, sitting at a workbench in a sunny seaport town, working beneath a blue sky as white sails filled the harbor like so many leaves in an aspen grove. He pictured a bearded sailmaker in a knit cap, with barrels of flour and molasses stacked on the wharves in the background, as in a painting. On the ships in the harbor, sailors pulled on ropes, tied knots. Cowboys of the seas, he had heard them called, weathered men who sang songs as they spliced heavy ropes.
Fielding did not know any seafaring songs except “Little Mohea” and “The Keyhole in the Door,” but he knew that many of the songs sung by cowpunchers were based on older versions that came across the ocean. Right now, a fragment of a rangeland song ran through his mind as he worked the stitch.
He did not remember where he had heard the song, or if he had heard it all the way through, but this much stayed with him.
After he had finished his mending job and put the needle back in his hatband, he folded the canvas and took it to the gear tent. As he bent over the stack of folded manties, he heard the sound of horse hooves on hard dirt. Drawing his pistol, he went to the tent flap and looked out.
A gray-bearded man, older than Roe or Selby and heavier than either of them, was poking along on a sorrel that Fielding recognized as one from the livery stable in town. He holstered his gun and stepped out into the open.
“Good morning,” he said. “Come on in.”
The older man rode a little farther, stopped the horse, and with some effort pushed up and over and then lowered himself to the ground. “Top of the mornin’ to you,” he said.
“Anything I can help you with?” Fielding asked.
“They told me in town you might need a hand.”
Fielding noted the man’s sagging build and stained suspenders. “I might. How are you around horses?”
The man’s left eye squinted at the outer corner, and muscles on his cheekbone twitched. “Been around ’em all my life.”
“Well, that’s good. If someone sent you here, then you know what kind of work I do. I’m about to take a load of supplies up into the mountains for a line camp. You know these outfits run cattle up there on summer range.”
“Oh, I know all about that. Good for the cattle. They get more shade, more water, better grass. Not so many bugs. Oh, yeah, I’ve been around.”
“What kind of work have you been doin’?”
The man spit to the side. “Plowin’ firebreaks for the railroad.”
“Is that all done with?”
“No, but if I’m goin’ to walk from here to Montana, back n’ forth a quarter of a mile at a time, I’d rather do it without a mule fartin’ in my face.”
“Well, horses aren’t much different. You might not have to walk so much on this job, but there’s a lot more to it than sittin’ in the saddle.”
“Oh, you tell me. I was puttin’ in fourteen hours a day in the saddle before you were born. Worked hard all my life. I’ve graded miles of road all by myself, built bridges since I was fifteen.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Fielding. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Nate. Last name of Freyer. Nate’s good enough.”
“Fryer, huh? Last time I had one named Baker.”
“Two cooks. Ha-ha!” The man opened his mouth and showed a row of yellow teeth.
“Well, Nate, I’ll tell you what. I could use the help, and the company as well. But once we get out there, you pretty much have to stick with it. I expect to be gone for eight to ten days.”
“Ah, hell, that don’t faze me none. When we was cuttin’ logs, we’d be out for a hundred, hundred and twenty days.”
“That’s fine. What say we give it a try right away, see if things’ll work out?”
“Sure.”
“How about if you take that brown horse out of the corral and tie him up? You can brush him down, and I’ll give you the saddle and blankets. Once you saddle him and get the bridle on, you can take a couple of turns on him.”
